I suppose I was asleep. You can’t learn carpentry
from a book on Dixie. But I came to furnish

pages—as deft arms once held a piano in that
horrific, disturbing way that music is.

I attended the event to find a giant missing.
RD, half is wonder. The hallucination was short-
lived, on tenterhooks: oil from fleece and the dirt.

Who said anything about machinery? To prevent
shrinkage, cloth on a frame outside and left

unsettled. Lengths stretched at the perimeter
to which edges fixed. To dry, stop the two
hemispheres, a protective helmet radiates light.

An accomplice to circumstance or the contrivance
of the cosmos. I met a substance and resigned: small
blue flowers.

Status: Under analysis:

That she could no longer presume to regard things hopefully was not surprising.

To: RD

From: VW

Sent: November 23, 3:34 pm

Subject: A knot of women

If not creator, a destroyer preferred? If I were
to record my dreams would likely command more attention than a series of sadistic inquisitions.
The music paled and thinned; can it be stretched?
As cartilage, skin and all.

At the party I chatted pretty with a host
of howevers, althoughs and yets employed for fifteen years of misery regarding potential partners. I’m
an exile of time.

I’m learning more and more why you stay away,
RD. A lover substituted for another (but what does this have to do with relativity?) Perhaps I was merely someone to manipulate on occasion. One
of the puppets.

When the opposite of sex is too much to bear, will the world end? I’m still terrified. A thick knot
of women.

Status: Occupied:

For the first time in my life, I am trying to avoid rooftops.

To: VW

From: RD

Sent: November 23, 3:52 pm

Subject: A deep swig

Why imagine a protracted kiss as in a dream.
To question the possibility of dwelling exclusively
in gray areas—the appeal of multiples or a secret past uncovered. I’m just a pile of ashes, I am not a girl. I’ll never be someone

to wrap your arms around for any length of time.(As I said, someone always disappoints.) I’ve been back only a week and I’ve already walked inside

storytime at the Rickshaw searching for interventions though they never fully materialized. What I meant to say: come home
with me. Because driving determines distance, accessibility. And I’ve a convertible

for adapting to various conditions. I am not a girl,
do you hear? I’m already feeling so much smarter about relationships. But wait/sorry/no you can’t ride with me. I don’t take passengers.

Status: Discovered:

Who said anything about machinery?

To: RD

From: VW

Sent: November 23, 7:15 pm

Subject: Re: An accomplice to circumstance

RD, it’s a horror. They’re treating the beloved crooner with small, blue flowers said to contain a ready antidote. But I fear Mr. Glass may be bent on destruction. (This was not an accident.)

I fled the stage and escaped the perimeter to deliver(with delicacy) the spare key to my acquaintance.In an audible landscape, listen:

the inner workings of my brain or some other.I’m the figure of a prostrate girl shaken; while the agentis outside the amphitheater with a helmet that radiateslight (can you tell: this is sarcasm).

If we could not marry, I should not be easy, holding hands or ingesting the blood of chickens. When I’m alone I can hardly stop weeping.

Status: Departed:

I don’t know whether God or television made her so smart. But I learned so much in a five-minute conversation.

Did you know we’ve a large mammal with a dietof partially burnt corpses? Let’s imagine: a poorly drawn sperm snatching bathers. Slaying the white whale is top priority.

Status: Reunited:

I think I knew her from an old cloud forest uncovered by seas.

To: RD

From: VW

Sent: November 24, 8:05 am

Subject: The squirrel relocation project

The women spoon and spilled they are so comfortable around you. Such mysteries just dropped where you happened to be standing.(Am I a woman or a shade, a 3,000-year-old forest uncovered by rains?) I am trying to let you go

over the Rhine, to a staged reading without me.But I keep seeing you everywhere (in this foreword to Valerie violence and the squirrel relocation project are ruthless). I keep tracking

locations of fire, but I’m most content whenthe flame begins to gutter, post crush phase. As close friends we are only briefly happy; for all our intractable contrasts a desire to connect so

infrequently satisfied. But when our need to charm fuses—the jewels in your necklace are whose handiwork? A small smooth object fallenfrom a tongue. You wear it as a body.

Valerie Witte is the author of the chapbook, The history of mining (ge collective, 2013); and her writing has appeared in various journals, including Diagram, Dusie, Barrow Street, VOLT, Interim, and Alice Blue. a game of correspondence is her first book. In 2014 she began a collaboration with Chicago-based artist Jennifer Yorke. Their artist books based on her manuscript Flood Diary have been displayed in the exhibition, “Quotidiean/Elements of the Everyday: Water,” held jointly at the CelerySpace gallery in Berkeley, CA, and La Porte Peinte in Noyers, France. She is a member of Kelsey Street Press and the Bay Area Correspondence School (BACS). A native St. Louisan, she now lives and works as an editor in the San Francisco Bay Area. Follow her musings and her work at @shellthief (Twitter) and valeriewitte.com.